If You Love Me
by HistoryIsImmortal
Summary: One-shot set in 4x20. A little re-write of the scene between Elijah and Katherine.


_Author's Note: Something I wrote after watching 4x20. Sort of a short re-write of the scene between Elijah and Katherine._

* * *

**If You Love Me**

"She's right," an almost bored-sounding voice drawls from behind him.

It's always baffled him how she can display this careless confidence as if she's merely a spectator in live, witnessing the foolishness of others and shaking her head at their tedious little problems. And it never ceases to leave him affected, be it irritated or impressed or both.

He turns around to find her leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching him.

"Be smart, Elijah," she continues and he notices that the smugness vanishes as she lets her arms fall to her sides. "Klaus is stark-raving mad, not to mention _completely_ irredeemable."

She steps closer, regarding him in a way he's seen rarely, if ever. She's reasoning with him, but her voice has a pleading quality. Katherine does not plead…

"Leave him to set off on this new adventure and let you and I go out on ours." There is no manipulation or falseness as she speaks. Her eyes are earnest and that gaze roots him to the ground. "I have lost _so much_ of my life to Klaus." A pause. "So have you. It's our turn, Elijah, _please_."

He looks down because he must. It is as if his heart is being torn in two. Love or loyalty? A chance for happiness or the call of duty?

"Five hundred and eighteen years ago I made the choice to go," she goes on, her voice barely a whisper, "when I should have stayed. I was scared. I had made too many mistakes in my life, even then." She snorts wistfully.

Her fingertips touch his cheek and he cannot help but look at her. What shines back in those dark orbs is not bitterness or malice, its hope, and he almost doesn't recognize it.

"But I'm here now. I've chosen to stay, chosen the right path for _once_ in my life. So if you go, I know that there will never be this choice again. I won't let it. If I have to walk away again, I will not, _cannot_, look back."

Elijah's brow furrows. The pad of her thumb brushes against his skin one last time and it feels terribly like a good-bye. The arm drops to her side, her eyes cast down, defeated.

She begins to turn around when he catches her hand in his.

"You're right," he says.

There's a thousand thoughts flying around inside his head, but he knows this is true. Too long have these fetters of blind loyalty held him down, made him suppress what he knew to be right in the name of his family.

"I wanted it to be different this time," he continues, his voice shattered, hoarse and broken. "But I was a fool to think I could change anything. Finn is dead. _Again._ And Kol…"

His body starts to shake. He's been keeping it all bottled up, unable to face the fact that he's lost them again. And this time there's no one but himself to blame. If he had learned from past mistakes as he thought he had, had not trusted Niklaus, had not gotten sucked into all the scheming, they might still be alive.

"Rebekah doesn't want anything to do with this family… Niklaus… I don't think… I cannot save Niklaus," he chokes out and it must be the hardest thing he has ever had to admit.

Her palms close around his face, lifting it up. Their eyes meet and he could swear that in that moment, in the waning light of the afternoon sun, she looks like an angel.

"But you saved me."

She pulls him to her with surprising force, holding him so tightly, it is as if her arms are the only thing that keep him together. His body still trembles under the weight of grief. He wishes he could just sob and let it all out but perhaps the emotion is hidden too deep, for too long a time, to ever really leave his bones. So he just trembles, his chest ablaze with pain while his eyes remain dry.

"Don't let me fall back into darkness," she whispers into his shoulder.

"I won't," he says. His eyes close, his mind is made up.

"She'll come back to you, you know," she adds. "Rebekah. She loves you too much to ever truly stay away."

"And Niklaus?" he wonders, failing to stop the words leaving his mouth.

She hesitates. "I don't know. Maybe someday…"

"You don't believe that, do you?"

"No. But I'm willing to nurse the hope. For your sake."

He feels her smile against his jacket and when they finally pull apart, he finds his heart a thousand times lighter.

"We'll leave. Tonight," he says.

"Where do we go?"

"You tell me. Where do you go when you don't _have to_ go anywhere?"

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_I just really wanted for Elijah to tell Klaus to go screw himself and choose his own path, which obviously didn't happen. Anyway, I guess it contradicts somewhat with Elijah's behavior in the rest of the episode, so I hope you managed to ignore it._

_If You Love Me is a song by Van Morrison._


End file.
